OneSteadfast Blog

When we are hurt by someone, we often lash out verbally. I have written about the tendency to label someone as “all bad,” and when we do that, it is often more than just a label. It can be an all-out verbal assault, where we vent our pain at the person's expense, either to their face or behind their backs to other people. We can be cruel and harsh, feeling justified because...SEE MORE

Sometimes people hurt us. Sometimes even the people we love hurt us. It can make us defensive, angry, and judgmental. We have a tendency to view people as the sum of their sins, as “all bad,” or even as enemies when they bring us pain. I have found myself trapped in this mindset, isolated to protect myself, thinking the worst of people who loved me dearly. When I was a teenager,...SEE MORE

My life has been filled with things. I spent years working nearly 70 hours a week at two jobs. I balanced family time with other pursuits. Time with friends, time on hobbies, time trying to unwind from the stress and anxiety of balancing everything. So many things to do to meet my obligations, and then other things to distract me from the burden of those things. Along the way, I had missed...SEE MORE

My treasure is there. It is not here. My children are here, but even they will be there, one day. Everything that matters to me is there or will be there soon. It wasn't always this way, for me; it is something that I gained through the loss of things that are here. The Old Testament introduces the idea of tithing. It is the idea that ten percent of your income should be set aside for the...SEE MORE

U2 has Christian references in some of their music. It always seemed like Bono was a seeker more than a believer, though. "Pride in the Name of Love" is a song about Martin Luther King, but has what seems to be a cross-reference to Jesus. Then it spins right back to the other king. In "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," Bono has a verse describing the work of Christ, but the chorus...SEE MORE

Many of us have experienced a painful, life-changing event. It could be some physical harm or illness, the loss of a loved one, the failure of a marriage, or the loss of a family home or business. It's happened to me. I went through an extended period feeling angry at God, disappointed that he hadn't revealed himself in the middle of the worst time in my life. I had lost the most important thing to me in the world.SEE MORE

I was watching this video and thought about how different the world is today than when I was growing up. My kids spend a lot of their time on screens, but I grew up reading books. I am almost as caught up in screens as they are, of course. I work on a computer all day. The difference is that I know I have lost something. People have always had a way to isolate. If you want to avoid personal...SEE MORE

I grew up playing board games with my family. We always had fun, but it was competitive; everyone did their best to win. As I graduated to strategic games like Diplomacy, I was exposed to situations which required me to break my promises in order to win. In Diplomacy, it's a necessary strategy. The double-cross, or backstab, is something that does happen from time to time. It's not my...SEE MORE

I have read this verse many times, but always in passing, because I have never been able to identify with the Pharisees. They were upset that Jesus was breaking bread with people who were, to the religious elite of Jesus' time, social outcasts. The Pharisees' quest for perfection under the law caused them to look with disdain at sinners. Having dinner with someone implied a deep association, in Jesus' culture.SEE MORE

I was thinking today about trust, about what it means to trust someone. At its core, trust means being willing to be vulnerable to being hurt. It means actively putting something of great importance in someone else's hands, without the means to control the outcome. Understanding this, it is easy to see why it is hard to trust people, and also, why it is hard to trust God. I do not like being...SEE MORE

On the way back from church, I asked my daughter about her small group study, and she told me that the subject was our purpose in life -- why God put us here, and what our lives were meant to be. The first thought that came to my mind was that this was such a big question, something to be sought out through the challenges of life as we mature and become complete people. It was a question...SEE MORE

Addiction is an unhealthy and typically self-destructive way to respond to the pain in our lives. It is unhealthy because it has no role in healing us from our pain, and increasingly traps us in failure. It can mute pain, distract us from it, attempt to override it with something that feels good. The pain still remains, and therefore feeds the addiction. The self-destructive aspects of addiction...SEE MORE